The integrated mosaic workshop

I returned last evening from an overnight visit to our project centre in Bhairahawa in the southwest of Nepal. Bhairahawa is a mere stone's throw from the Indian border and a slightly longer chuck from Lumbini, which is the birthplace of Buddha. In December we collocated our two mosaic workshops, transferring the child trafficking survivors at the Kathmandu workshop to join the deaf school leavers at the Bhairahawa workshop. This has proven to be quite fascinating and highly successful as disabled young people and able-bodied girls work side by side in an integrated workshop. The girls have all learned sign language and joining in their party games on Tuesday evening I really had to remind myself that most of the group was deaf. I found it lovely to witness the joy of it all.


A large part of the magical atmosphere of the place stems from the volunteers, past and present, who have given so much of themselves in inspiring and training the students. The workshop is currently managed by American artist Carol Hummel (http://www.carolhummel.com/om/) whose good humour and sense of fun is quite infectious. She has just recently been joined by a second artist, Hazel Fullerton, and the group is complemented by two gap year students over from Cyprus, Alex and Jade. The scope of the training has mushroomed - literally - with training in mosaics being complemented with English and IT classes and, er, growing of oyster mushrooms in a shed at the back.


With its proximity to Buddha's birthplace we hope that we can find a market for appropriate mosaics that can be offered to tourists who pass through the area. These are now being made in a range of dimensions from life size (that would work well in a local building) to small portraits that can be squeezed into a rucksack. My Presbyterian roots mean that I am not a particular fan of religious imagery (such things are banned from the kirk!) but if this theme gives jobs to marginalised young people I am all for it.

Goose-a-laying

My charity's Christmas cards are now available for purchase. The cover shows a mosaic entitled "Goose-a-laying" (as per the 12 Days of Christmas carol) that was made by Kumari, a former circus girl who is a graduate of the art workshop that we've been running in Kathmandu this year. The cards sell at £3.99 for a pack of 8, with postage and packing costs of:

Up to 4 packs - £1.65
Up to 6 packs - £1.75
Up to 8 packs - £2.00
Up to 10 packs - £2.55


Once again, through the kind sponsorship of leading London-based engineering company Ramboll Whitbybird, 100% of the purchase price represents a donation to The Esther Benjamins Trust (EBT). Recipients of the card will be able to order an original of the mosaic - which is from a limited edition - that will ensure trafficking survivors are kept in work making them well into January. So beat that for a charity Christmas card offer!

You can place your order by contacting EBT through e mail - info@ebtrust.org.uk - by telephone - 020 7600 5654 or through placing an order via the Trust's website - www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/home.htm

Farewell to Holly

Today I invited volunteer Holly Wheaton, who is due to leave the team on Friday, for a farewell lunch. Holly is a gap year student who has been taking a year out prior to going to Warwick University in the UK this September. Many gap year students elect to travel around the world enjoying a prolonged holiday after school. Personally though, I think that this crucial time is better spent in character-forming activities if appropriate challenges can be found. Holly has had just such an experience in that we placed her for several months in a remote part of Nepal (Bhairahawa) and asked her to help teach deaf school leavers mosaic art. She rose to that challenge and has been outstanding; she's enjoyed herself immensely as well.

Everyone will miss Holly over here and we look forward to her keeping her promise to come back to Nepal next Summer.

Land of the Tiger

The girls at our Himalayan Mosaics workshop are now producing smaller and more detailed mosaics. This makes these exquisite mosaics easier to sell to tourists, who might have limited packing space, and cheaper to export. The latest designs of Nepali flora and fauna by my wife Bev seem to have developed along a tiger theme. Pictured right (awaiting grouting) is a tiger orchid, a common tiger and plain tiger butterfly and, er, a tiger. All mosaics are a mere 18 cm by 15 cm. Most excitingly we are now producing our own hand made tiles which are cut up to make the mosaics. This will increase the range of colours that are available. If anyone would like to order a mosaic or mosaics (and give a survivor of child trafficking employment) then just drop me a line.

Recently a supporter in the UK tested what I consider to be a fairly unreliable postal service by sending us a modest consignment of clothes for the children at our refuges. Yesterday the clothes were received in Kathmandu and they were put straight away to good use by the boys in the picture below. This means so much to us as the quality of locally available clothes is poor and the need is great given the 170 kids that we are looking after at the moment. If you'd like to follow this supporter's example (and are prepared to risk the loss of second hand clothes that would be subsequently untraceable) then please post what you've got to:

The Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation

PO Box 26050

Sundhara

Kathmandu

Nepal

Thanks!

The Sundhara Project

Since March this year we have been training deaf school leavers in Bhairahawa, southwest Nepal, in mosaic art techniques. This initiative was profiled in an article, "Silent Beauty", in the Nepali Times of 21st March. The trainees have been learning the basics in advance of our major mosaic project at a cafe in Sundhara, Kathmandu. The link is that this is one of the Nanglos "bakery cafe" chain that is distinctive in its favouring the employment of deaf and other disabled staff. The plan is to place a large mosaic in each of ten wall panels that surround the open air atrium that serves as the cafe's dining and function area.

Sculptor Rebecca Hawkins, who earlier this year was a volunteer art tutor at our workshops for child trafficking survivors, is designing the artwork, using as a theme the wildlife of the Terai (the southern strip of Nepal). This morning she sent me her design for the first of the panels (see right). She'll now have an input from my friend British professional mosaic artist Jo Letchford and then the young deaf artists can get started on those tiles. The project will be part funded by the cafe and by two schools, Sha Tin College in Hong Kong and Kingston Grammar in the UK.

Rebecca (wearing black) is shown in the video below measuring up the panels at the cafe, assisted by Esther Benjamins Trust staff member, Camilla Kinchin, who is coordinating the project.

I hope this will be the first of many such projects in Nepal that will raise the profile of disabled and other stigmatised groups within society.

Rhino poaching

Just last month the news was that the endangered one-horn rhino was making a comeback in Nepal with an increase in numbers recorded in Chitwan National Park. Whether that is true or not (and I naturally disbelieve most things I hear in Nepal) it is clear that poaching is still a huge problem in spite of the Nepalese Army guarding the parks. Just today I read that a rhino was found dead in Bardia National Park yesterday, its horn removed, along with the body of a soldier 400 metres away. The poachers are ruthless and there's a lot of money involved in the trade in animal parts, many of which find there way to the discerning Chinese. I wonder if the victim of the poaching was the magnificent specimen whose picture I showed in yesterday's post?

Increasingly I am becoming interested in somehow supporting conservation projects here (not that there are many to choose from), perhaps through sales of mosaics. Much of Nepal's wildlife seems particularly fragile in the midst of the current chaos and no one cares less than the politicians who are jockeying now for power.

Junque

Twenty years ago I was stationed with the British Army in Catterick, North Yorkshire, newly married to Esther. She was at a rather loose end and looking for something to do that would allow her some escape from the Army wives' scene. It so happened that my Commanding Officer's wife, Eve Magee, was seeking similar distraction and the two of them hatched a plan. They would go to auctions, buy whatever took their fancy with a view to selling it on at fairs.

At the auctions the very stylish Esther, who adored antiques, bought rather pricey items whereas Eve, who had much more business sense, bought cheap trinkets, antique bottles and the like. When it came to the fairs Esther's stuff didn't move whereas Eve's junk (or as her husband Paddy termed it "junque") sold like hot cakes. The customers just wanted cheap souvenirs of their visit to wherever the fair was being staged. I still have some of Esther's items, unsold, whereas Eve went on from that to set up and run a very successful second hand book business.

I was reminded of this over the weekend at the sale of mosaics that we held at the Summit Hotel in Kathmandu. Essentially the most attractive, more pricey, mosaics didn't sell quite so well as the low cost alternatives (which represented old stock) that went very quickly. So my conclusion for the future is to have the girls working to two standards with the better ones continuing to make exquisite mosaics to commission while the less able produce smaller items that will have wider public appeal.

So I've learned a lesson from Eve, who by the way will be doing a sponsored walk for the Trust in August. When she sends me a link to her online sponsorship form I'll pass it on to you...

London Mosaics

I am not a particular fan of meetings which are so often a very soporific unproductive use of time; after I left the Army I vowed that I would never call a charity one unless absolutely necessary and that they would be as short and to the point as possible. But this week - even though it is week one of a "holiday" - has started for me with four brilliant ones in rapid succession.

The first of these was on Monday morning with Lesley Hynes, partner at Midas Charity Appeals (http://www.midasappeals.org.uk/). An external strategic review of The Esther Benjamins Trust that we commissioned last year flagged up a need to develop our grant-making Trust fundraising capacity. Unfortunately we can't afford to appoint a fully trained fundraiser so instead recruited Chris Kendrick with his excellent written and interpersonal skills with a view to training him to meet our needs. Part of that will involve support and mentoring through Lesley over the course of the next four months. We have been running up a deficit of income over expenditure for the last two years and I am confident that Chris and Lesley will take us back into the black.

Monday afternoon I met with consultant child psychiatrist David Jones, friend of a friend, whom I was meeting for the first time. David had visited the project work in October and, hearing of our need for specialist support for maltreated children, offered to help out. As a consequence I am now having a very fruitful exchange with David and with another new interested party, child pscyhologist Steve Shears. Ultimately I hope we can set up an excellent referral service in Kathmandu to complement the existing art therapy that we have been conducting indirectly through our art workshops. No such facility currently exists and the need is huge with all the abuse that trafficked kids suffer together with the trauma that children have experienced through the recently-ended conflict.

On Tuesday I linked up with Ian Kerr, Founder of ActionAid and of Midas, who came to see us in Kathmandu in December. Struck by the calibre of the project work - "it is as per what it says on the tin" - he offered to help us with fundraising and making contacts. That process began on Tuesday with an introduction to former gymnast Jane Walker who is a major gifts fundraiser by day and a circus performer by evening and weekend. She has been trained at the very impressive Circus Space in Hoxton (http://www.thecircusspace.co.uk/) which even trains its students towards obtaining degrees in circus skills. Jane was naturally very interested in our work. I am hoping that she may be able to come and spend some time with our Kathmandu girls later on this year during the course of a sabbatical. If nothing else it would be great for the our girls - for whom having been a performer in a circus represents a stigma - to meet one of their own sex who is such an enthusiast for the art form.

I digress to write that the venue for this meeting was St Barnabas House, just off Soho Square. It is a little known gem of a building dating from around 1750. Up until quite recently it was a hostel for battered women and was not open to the general public. It still isn't but Ian, who is a Trustee of its associated charity, took me to see the rooms that have well preserved features including original gold silk wall hangings and ornate plaster ceilings. But best of all were the fabulous nineteenth century mosaics behind the altar in the chapel. On the way home I passed through the nearby Tottenham Court Road underground station which is famous for its own collection of mosaics. Modern in style, but as impressive in their own way.

The final meeting came yesterday when I met Ian again, this time to have lunch with Kate Baldwin, Director of regular funder The Sylvia Adams Charitable Trust (http://www.sylvia-adams.org.uk/) to see if she might be willing for Adams to consider seed funding to the tune of £50k for the purchase and conversion of our arts rehabilitation centre in Kathmandu. The overall working budget is £250k and we would hope to cover this through five blocks of £50k. Our request was as politely received as ever, but Kate will of course need to consult with Trustees and hear more of our plans in due course.

Today I advertised in two British art magazines for replacement volunteer art teachers for our Kathmandu workshops. I hope some suitable candidates step forward otherwise we'll have to scrape the barrel and I may have to revert to the role of teacher....

Rediscovering beauty

Yesterday Bev commented on how one of the girls in the mosaic studio, Chameli, had shown a dramatic improvement in her technique as she worked on a new subject, geckos. I wondered if this was a reflection of a sudden boost of self confidence akin to that of the child who realises that swimming isn't that difficult after all and plunges forward into the depths with feet off the bottom. Or maybe her progress was an indication of something else.

After Esther's death - almost nine years ago now - it seemed that in the immediate aftermath of that horror and tragedy beauty had also died for me. I turned all the pictures in our home to face downwards and stopped playing music; the house that had been the scene of her last desperate act became doubly grim. My reaction echoed the experiences of the general medical practitioner I had consulted at the time. It so happened that his daughter had also taken her own life just a month or two before Esther and that loss had followed the murder of her mother some years previously. He told me that after his wife's death all the beauty had gone and he would look upon say a rose as being just another object.

I recall how a couple of weeks afterwards I had a very profound dream in which I was painting a landscape - one that I saw in vivid colour, light and shadow with the sun playing on the early morning dew. In the dream I turned to someone beside me and said "Isn't it beautiful?". I awoke from that dream realising that the beauty was still there; it was merely my perception that had become warped. I decided to work hard at correcting that distortion and that day returned the pictures to their rightful position and started playing classical music again - very loudly. And that jolt seemed to work for me.

It struck me that maybe the other day, after spending years inside the grim Indian circus, Chameli may have suddenly seen her handiwork turning into something that was attractive rather than just an assembly of hand cut tiles. Perhaps she too had re-discovered beauty.

Film of our art workshop in Kathmandu

Yesterday I went to visit our art workshop for child trafficking victims here in Kathmandu. I was delighted with the progress as I watched our UK volunteer ceramicist, Alex Hunter, teach the girls press moulding and pot throwing. In a classroom next door other girls were learning mosaic techniques.

When the course is over at the end of February I expect about half of the students to become employees at my new not-for-profit company "Himalayan Mosaics". The remaining girls will commence an advanced workshop. Ultimately all should enter good employment through jobs that we create and never again be vulnerable to poverty and the criminal intent of others.

There's a challenge!

Resurrection

In my 16th November post "Rural Education in Nepal" I showed a photograph of a Lime Swallowtail butterfly that I had found dead outside my house. Laxmi, whom we rescued from an Indian circus in April 2004, has brought it back to life in mosaic. I wonder if she sees a parallel with her own situation, the resurrection she has experienced in becoming a mosaic artist after the living death she must have endured inside the circus?

An Auspicious Day

The first consignment of mosaics left my Kathmandu mosaic studio yesterday en route to the exhibition that we will be holding in Skipton, North Yorkshire, UK on the 4th December. The excitement of the girls was tangible and sweet to witness. It must have been amazing for them to be preparing for such an event so soon after having been trapped inside miserable Indian circuses. The central exhibit will be the eight auspicious symbols of Tibetan Buddhism. For the unitiated, like me, they are:

the white parasol - keeps away the heat of evil desires

two fish - symbols of happiness and utility

seashell - symbol of blessedness to the right

lotus - pledge of salvation and symbol of divine origin

vessel - treasury of all desires

victory - banner erected on Mt Meru, centre of the Buddhist cosmos

wheel - eight spokes represent the eight fold path

endless knot - mystic diagram representing endless rebirths

Whatever one makes of the religious significance of these, or otherwise, I think they look great and the girls have really excelled themselves in subject material that they can relate to. I am very tempted to buy these myself to celebrate the auspicious day when we complete our international adoption process with Alisha. That will be something that she too can treasure in later life and always have as a valued, and no doubt much-needed, reminder of her native land.

Predatory parents

The fall out from the Dashain holidays continues. We had anticipated problems arising for our girls when they returned home for their annual visit to their no-good families. Three have not returned, one of them getting married and another engaged. Today, the mother of a fourth girl turned up at the Kathmandu hostel were the mosaic girls stay, looking for money off her daughter Maya (name changed). Maya had gone home for Dashain with a lot of money in her pocket and now the greedy mother wanted more.

Maya's story began in April 2004 when we rescued her from an Indian circus in Kerala. Her family background was dreadful - no known father and a mother involved in the sex trade. After a great deal of thought we decided to take a risk and return her to her mother (at the time family reunifications being top priority) but we discovered soon afterwards that her mother had promptly sent her off into domestic service (slavery) in Kathmandu. So the field worker who had rescued her from the circus had to rescue her a second time, this time from a house in Kathmandu. Maya then came to live at our children's refuge and attended school for a couple of years before beginning my mosaic training last October. She is a brilliant artist and has been rewarded very well financially for her efforts. Now the mother who has spoiled her life twice stands to spoil it again if we don't take action. Maya is very happy to give her money though, perhaps in an attempt to buy love and some kind of family connection.

After some discussion this morning with fellow carers I have decided that the girls at my studio who will sign contracts with Himalayan Mosaics at the start of next month will agree to how their wages are managed during the term of their contracts. They will pay for their keep and receive a modest amount of pocket money. The remainder will be locked away in a savings account until completion of their contract. If they need anything urgently in the meantime then it will be only by agreement of the employer (me).

It is difficult to anticpate everything over here, but that should keep the predatory parents at bay.

Mosaics at an exhibition

The girls in my studio in Godawari, Kathmandu, are working flat out to meet a mosaics exhibition deadline. Our old friends at Namaste-UK Ltd (http://www.namaste-uk.com/) visited the studio last month and were so taken by the work that they immediately offered to stage an exhibition in Skipton on the 4th December. That is excruciatingly tight, but we've pulled the stops out to not only deliver the goods but also to produce some new designs. These include some Tibetan themes like the jewellry and carpet motifs pictured right. I will be giving a talk at the exhibition and we're crossing our fingers that it will be well attended by potential buyers and give Himalayan Mosaics a great early boost.

But of course these days you don't have to leave home to attend an exhibition. London law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse are now very kindly hosting an exhibition of our mosaics through Second Life. If you haven't signed up for Second Life you can get a flavour of this initiative here:

http://www.ffw.com/news/2007/nov/art-exhibition-realsecond-lif.aspx

Birthday mosaics

The Kathmandu mosaic studio re-opened yesterday. Two other girls haven't returned after the Dashain break. One, Bipana, who had been struggling somewhat, has stayed behind with her family. Another, Bishnu, has got engaged. I doubt if either of them will come back to us.

It is quite a challenge to keep the studio girls' interest going, especially if one is working to favourite designs that can become repetitive (sadly a business requirement). So I work hard to give them some variety. Yesterday we held a special children's lunchtime birthday party for the daughter of one of my expatriate friends in Kathmandu. Six children spent about four hours with us making their own individual mosaic pieces to keep. As children's hands tend to be a bit too small to hold the cutters and too weak to cut the tiles the studio girls ended up doing most of the work. Although this is fun it is also a source of income to the organisation. There's no such thing as a free lunch....

Hidden Nepal

Yesterday I returned once again in UK, to attend meetings and pursue funds. This evening I'll be in Macclesfield (for the second visit inside a month) this time to address a District "Inner Wheel" meeting, ladies who are the wives of Rotarians. The organiser, Adrienne Fox, invited me a few months ago to participate, having heard me speak on two previous occasions. I am flattered but I hope that the stinking cold that I am nursing doesn't lead to disappointment.


Before I left Nepal I had a very pleasant lunch at a delightfully secluded spot in the hills above Kathmandu, another hidden gem that I have discovered in the last couple of weeks (see previous post "Garden Sculpture"). It has tremendous views over the Himalayas and the food, enjoyed to the sound of a background hum of a host of crickets, was magical. This time I am going to be selfish and keep the location a secret apart from for supporters of the Trust!

Another element of hidden Nepal is the wonderful wildlife that must emerge at night. On the outside wall of the hilltop restaurant I was amazed to find a cluster of exotic moths around the exterior light that had attracted them the previous evening. I publish here the pictures that I took of them, some of which will inspire future mosaics.

Irish mosaics

A few months back the Youth Club at St McArtin's Cathedral in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland undertook a sponsored stay awake to raise funds for our work with trafficked children. My brother Willie, who is a congregation member, is my link there and in response to an excellent £1,120 raised on the night I offered to have my girls make a mosaic of gratitude. I chose as the subject the Celtic statues on White Island on Lough Erne and former circus girl Manju really brought those old statues to life. Now the mosaic will go on display in the Parish Hall at the Cathedral and bear testimony to the gratitude of young people on the other side of the world. Well worth staying up for.